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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

EZ Muscle Building Recipes

My Practical "Lazy Cook" Recipes For Building Muscle! So Easy Even a Caveman Can Make Them...

By Nick Nilsson

Find yourself short on time to cook a good healthy nutritious muscle building meal? I know I do! Learn my "secret"
recipes that are extremely quick and simple to make. I'll give you
my favorite muscle-building meals!
Apply the Knowledge, take massive Action, get massive results.

If you're like me, you sometimes find yourself short on time to cook yourself a good meal. And if you're also like me, meaning a lazy cook, sometimes the motivation to really make a grand meal is short, too!

So what do you when this happens but you still want to reach your muscle-building and strength goals?

I've got three great "recipes" (and I use the word "recipes" in the loosest sense possible!) to share with you that will help you stay on track towards muscling up.

Keep in mind, even though I'm going to inject a little humor into this list, these are examples of actual things you can prepare for yourself to help make your life easier! I just want to show you that decent nutrition doesn't have be dull as dirt or taste like it either.

**** Also it's important to note, I'm NOT a nutritionist And I don't claim to be! So
PLEASE don't make a gigantic vat of mashed potatoes then complain because
you're diabetic and your blood sugar is so high that you're sweating maple syrup.
These recipes are for "entertainment purposes only," so if you DO follow them,
personal responsibility is the keyword here! :) ****

These recipes are simple to make, don't take long to cook and are geared to my own personal skill level of cooking, which is boiling, microwaving, toasting (in a toaster, not one of them fancy toaster oven things), some basic frypan work and ripping open packages like a starving raccoon...

With these recipes, I'm not going to include salads. You're on your own with those. Personally, I eat them as often as I can (and you should too!), taking advantage of the convenient prepackaged salad bags from the store, throwing in some grape tomatoes, almonds, broccoli, carrots and whatever else is in the fridge that looks like it might go well in a salad and isn't TOO far past the date. Add some healthy dressing (on a side note, salsa is actually surprisingly good on salad) and voila! You're good to go.

Getting plenty of vegetables is also important - rather than force my personal vegetable preferences onto you (which are broccoli, snap peas, carrots, and chocolate covered almonds) just make the effort to eat vegetables as much as you can every day. Fresher and less processed is better, as is organic, but just do the best you can with that. You would have to REALLY go to town to eat TOO many vegetables so don't be shy with them.

I'm also a big fan of taking vitamin and mineral supplements because no matter how "balanced" your diet appears to be, food is so depleted of nutrients right from the start these days that you're probably not getting nearly as many nutrients as you think you are from your food.

Let me put it this way, I'd rather have "expensive urine" (many doctors seem to think this is all you'll get from taking vitamins) than a debilitating illness caused by simple vitamin and mineral deficiencies that I then have to take expensive drugs to basically just mask the symptoms of.

But I digress...

To make best use of these recipes for those short on time, Tupperware will be your best friend. Make a LOT when you DO make something and save the rest for later. It's great to make things fresh but it's also great to just sling something you made yesterday into the microwave and eat it again (and again after that, if you made a WHOLE LOT!). It'll save you from eating cereal three meals a day (not that I've ever done THAT, of course...).

Serving sizes are totally up to you. I usually eat the majority of what I make then save some for the next day, especially if it's a post-workout meal.

So let's get into those muscle building recipes...

1. Spaghetti with Cajun Meat Sauce

This is a great, protein-rich post-workout meal. Tastes great and serves 1 to 4 people, depending completely on how hungry you are and your willingness to share with others.

1 pound of whole wheat spaghetti (a healthier way to go)

1 jar of sauce that's thick enough to cover up the taste of whole wheat spaghetti (that's my own opinion, at least!)

1 pound of lean ground beef (I like ground sirloin for this because it's leaner)

Some pre-packaged Cajun spices - I get big containers of these at Sam's Club but most grocery stores should have some version. This really spices up the meat sauce nicely.

First, put some water in a big pot and set the stove on high to bring it to a boil. Fill a sauce pan/fry pan about halfway up with water. I like to put the ground beef in the pan BEFORE I add the water so it doesn't splash all over the place when I dump the meat in (found THAT out the hard way, of course - the dog was happy about the meat water all over the floor but the shirt I was wearing will never be the same).

Bring the water in that pan to a boil and throw a bunch of Cajun spice in the pan with the meat. Don't be cheap with it! Stir it in and smash the meat up so it's not all clumped together.

When the spaghetti water is boiling, dump the spaghetti in. Let it boil for 9-10 minutes then drain. The meat will be boiling while the spaghetti is boiling - if the meat gets done first, drain it then cover it up. It'll keep its heat as long as it's covered.

Empty the sauce jar into the spaghetti pot and stir it up. If you're not sharing the pasta with someone who doesn't like meat, feel free to throw the meat in the spaghetti pot, too. If you ARE sharing, serve out some spaghetti into a separate big bowl THEN toss the meat in there. It'll just work out better for all concerned that way.

Serve sitting on the couch with an oven mitt under the bowl because it'll be dang hot on the bottom! And it's better NOT to wear a white shirt while you're eating it. 'Nuff said.

This is a great breakfast meal that will keep you from getting hungry for HOURS. The fat in the egg yolks keeps you satisfied while the thick oatmeal will keep your digestive system busy for a long time. Lots of fiber to work on!

6 whole eggs - from a local farm not egg whites or eggs from the grocery store, WHOLE eggs! They're not bad for you like many people seem to think. The yolk is where most of the nutrients are. Tastes a whole lot better with yolks, too. Adjust the number of eggs to your preference.

1 gob of Smart Balance margarine to coat the bottom of the pan. Cooking spray will work for this as will olive oil.

1 dry cup of Quaker Oats - either the Old Fashioned or 1 Minute oats are fine here. Adjust the quantity of oats to your preference.

2 cups of water (basically, double the amount of oats you put in).

A bunch of fruit - whatever your favorite fruit is. I find berries or grapes work best because you don't need to cut them up. Wash them before eating them.

1 Thing of yogurt - this is the technical term for however much yogurt you want to put in the oatmeal. If I have individually packaged yogurts, I'll just dump one of those in. If I have a bigger container, I'll scoop a pile of yogurt in until it looks like enough. You'll figure out how much you want to put in.

First, get the fruit ready. Wash it up and put it in a small bowl. Crack the eggs into a bowl/cup and scramble them. If you're talented, you can crack them with one hand and not slop them down the sides. After cracking about 30,000 eggs in my lifetime, I'm still not talented. I managed to do it once then the next time I ended up with a dripping fistful of egg and shell.

** On a side note, it IS possible to squeeze an egg with one hand and break it. A friend of mine once told me that you can't put an egg in the palm of your hand, squeeze it and break it. He said it wasn't possible (he was a physics major). So I grabbed an egg and squeezed it REALLY tight. Three seconds later, it exploded so hard the yolk popped out and flew 6 feet across the room and actually landed right in his shirt pocket!

So anyway, THAT being said, measure out a cup of oats, dump it in a good-sized bowl, then add double the amount of oats in water, e.g. 1 cup of oats, add 2 cups of water. You can adjust the water later, depending on if you like your oatmeal a little soupy (like I do) or masonry thick (like my wife does).

Nuke it for about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. While that's going, turn on the stove and get the pan for the eggs heated up. Throw a gob of Smart Balance margarine in the pan (that's a great brand - it's actually a reasonably healthy margarine and tastes good). Olive oil works really well here, too, as does non-stick spray. With the olive oil, it's a good idea to have a spray bottle for it so it doesn't all pool up in the corner that your stove burner leans to (you know what I'm talking about).

Make sure the whole bottom surface of the egg pan gets covered with something slippery or you'll regret it later when you try to keep eggs from getting all crusted up and nasty along the sides.